Democrats turn to small businesses to highlight pain caused by government shutdown

Democrats turned to small businesses Thursday as allies in their battle to force House Republicans to end the government shutdown.

President Barack Obamavisited M. Luis Construction in Rockville, Md., where he said businesses all over the country would suffer unless the House passes a government funding bill with "no partisan strings attached."

Meanwhile, at the Capitol, Senate Democrats held a press conference featuring small business owners who are being hurt by the government shutdown.

LaJuanna Russell, president of Business Management Associates in Alexandria, Va., said her federal contracting firm "had to lay off 10 people when sequestration hit." Now she's worried she may have to lay off more employees because of the uncertain fate of two government contracts that were supposed to start Oct. 1.

It's hard to tell employees that there's no more work for them, Russell said.

"I don't want to make any more calls," she said.

"Some members of Congress "don't understand real life," she said, and don't realize that the government shutdown "is a decision that impacts people every day."

Lynn Ozer, president of Small Business Administration lending for Susquehanna Bank in Pottstown, Pa., talked about how the shutdown in SBA lending is hurting her customers. Loans to hundreds of small businesses are on hold because the SBA was forced to stop processing these loans on Tuesday.

These small businesses are "innocent bystanders" to the political impasse that led to the government shutdown, said Ozer, who chairs the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders.

"I ask you, please, do not hurt those borrowers," she said.

Ozer cited two of her borrowers who have been left in a bind because their loans are on hold. One is a veteran-owned manufacturing company that is due to start work on a federal contract Oct. 20 and has been approved for an SBA loan to buy equipment needed to fulfill it. It can't get the money, however, because of the government shutdown.

She also cited a young couple who have signed a lease for a new restaurant in Philadelphia. Everything is all set for their SBA loan except for one thing: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services needs to confirm their permanent resident status. That can't happen as long as the government is shut down.

Millions of businesses around the country are being hurt by the "irresponsibility, reckless and radical behavior" of Tea Party Republicans, said Sen. Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat who chairs the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

Because of the government shutdown, small businesses are losing more than $1 billion a day in federal contracts, she said. Every day the shutdown drags on, another 150 SBA loans aren't disbursed to small businesses.

"Real pain is beginning to be felt" on Main Street, Landrieu said.

The Tea Party's goal in this funding fight may have been to defund Obamacare, but "they're throwing small businesses overboard -- by the boatloads," she said.

Lots of small businesses don't like Obamacare, but so far Republicans haven't rallied them behind their insistence that health care reform be defunded or delayed as a condition for funding the rest of the government. If that happens, I'll be there for that news conference as well.

But most business groups, including usual Republican allies such as the National Federation of Independent Business. urged Congress to avoid a government shutdown and deal with issues like Obamacare later.

NFIB, however, did take an opportunity Thursday to respond to Obama's speech and urge the president to support a repeal of Obamacare's tax on health insurance companies. That tax is being passed on to small businesses in the form of higher premiums, NFIB contends.

"If President Obama is as concerned about small businesses as he claimed today, he should turn his concern into action and provide them relief from the significant burden of the HIT," or health insurance tax, said Kevin Kuhlman, manager of legislative affairs for NFIB.

"While the government shutdown will certainly have an impact, it is a temporary disturbance compared to the long-term damage the HIT will do the nation's economy," Kuhlman said.